


Worldviews

by Marium



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Cultural Differences, Cultural discussion, Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash, also Athelstan is fascinated by Ragnar's eyes, but in my mind it eventually develops towards it?, not really romantic or sexual here, that might be me projecting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-18
Updated: 2016-11-18
Packaged: 2018-08-31 18:07:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8588482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marium/pseuds/Marium
Summary: Waiting for fish on a small boat in the middle of a lake seems like the ideal occasion for Ragnar to seek to satisfy his eternal curiosity, and the man has a way of wording things that makes Athelstan doubt about what his life had always been.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt on tumblr, asking for Ragnar and Athelstan fishing on a boat and talking about their worlds.

There were no words said between them, the only sound reaching his ears those of the water rocking against the boat, the oars moving in the water, and far-off cries of seagulls. He felt the saltiness of the air in his tongue, and the chill of the approaching Winter, though not too bad yet, made him wish he was back inside the farm.

The other man stopped rowing and the boat drifted for a few moments before it stilled, moving only due to the gentle waves, back and forth and again. Athelstan silently prepared the net and threw it, watching it sink and disappear into the cold, dark water.

He sat again while he waited for fish to get caught. He had his eyes fixed on his hands, which were sitting on his lap, but his attention was on something else: The man sitting across him who hadn’t said a single word yet.

He felt the man’s – Ragnar’s – eyes on him, no less than if there was a hand resting against his shoulder. Those eyes were clearly engraved on Athelstan’s mind, since the first second they had looked at him. Eyes that were made of ice, but felt like the brightest fire.

Those eyes held power, a power that frightened almost as much as fascinated Athelstan. They could made him obey without needing to hear a single word from their owner. He had stood silently by the door, resting his gaze on the younger man until that intensity alone made him realize he had company in less than ten seconds. Then he had gestured outisde with a tilt of his head, and his eyes had sparkled before he walked outside. Mere seconds later Athelstan had dropped his duty and was helping push the boat into the water.

Athelstan wasn’t entirely convinced those eyes could be human. He was hesitant to even think about the norsemen’s stories, but he couldn’t help but wonder if – dwarves? Giants? Which ones were the smiths again? - had created those eyes and dropped them into a human body. But then again, Ragnar’s presence and will were so strong Athelstan sometimes wondered about his very human nature.

Maybe all of Ragnar was made by magical creatures, down to his soul. That would explain why, despite having enslaved him, Athelstan couldn’t bring himself to hold any kind of animosity towards him.

Maybe he was a demon. Or maybe he was one of the pagan’s gods, trying to claim a follower from Christ’s ones. Whatever it was, Athelstan found it harder and harder to resist his charm.

“What are you thinking about, priest?”

Ragnar’s voice broke into the younger man’s thoughts like a thunder into the sky – yes, thunder, that felt appropriate – and he looked up, coming out of his own mind and meeting those two eyes he had been thinking about seconds ago.

If they were a physical presence when they were just looking at him, staring back at them was like seeing a closed door to his soul – Athelstan couldn’t read them, but he knew there was the power and danger of a sea storm underneath. However, that power had remained calm when directed at Athelstan, ever since Ragnar decided to keep him among all the treasures from Lindisfarne.

The priest could only hold the other’s gaze for a few moments before looking away. He caressed his wrist absently.

“I was thinking about how different everything was half a year ago” he answered, unable to bring himself to completely lie, both for Ragnar’s effect and for his christian morality.

“Yes? And why were you thinking about that now? If you get bored from waiting for the fish, you could just talk to me.”

“It’s the boat. I have been on a boat more often since I came here than in all my life before. It’s a strange thought, in a way.

He felt, more than he saw, Ragnar leaning more towards him, and felt the burning curiosity in his eyes, too. The curiosity that had led him to destroy Athelstan’s life, but to save it too.

“You lived on an island. How is it possible that you didn’t take a boat? How did you communicate with the people inland?”

It took some moments for Athelstan to answer. Meanwhile, the gentle waves kept filling the silence.

“We didn’t communicate with them” Athelstan started, wording things slowly as he thought how to explain it to a pagan. He met Ragnar’s gaze and this time was able to hold it. “Or we did as little as possible, at least. The purpose of our stay there is to isolate ourselves from the world so we can dedicate all of our being to God.”

Ragnar’s eyes widened, with that already usual combination of surprise and almost confusion. He leaned back, crossed his arms under his head, but his eyes didn’t move away from Athelstan’s for a single moment. There was some sort of magnetism that made Athelstan unable to look away either, despite knowing that within minutes Ragnar’s eyes would probably show he found Athelstan’s world ridiculous.

“What for? What do you do isolated that you can’t do in the company of people?”

“We work on copying many books, but mostly the holy scriptures. We copy them, we study them, and we decorate them to the best of our ability. And doing so brings us closer to God.”

“And then?”

That was not a question Athelstan had expected. He blinked a few times at Ragnar, confused.

“What do you mean, ‘then’?”

“When you’re done with those scriptures, what do you do with the books? You give it to the people?”

“No. They aren’t meant to go to the people. We store them away to save the knowledge.”

Ragnar was scowling now, the face he did when he was trying to understand something from Athelstan’s world that was too strange for him.

“What’s the point in that? What’s a story good for if it’s not to be shared?”

Now Athelstan was the one frowning sightly as he leaned forward a few inches.

“Those aren’t just stories. It’s the word of God and all the knowledge we can find.”

“But you keep it to yourselves. I don’t see the point.”

“It’s worth it on itself. It doesn’t need to be used to be valuable.”

Ragnar continued scowling for a few moments, then shrugged and waved his hand. Athelstan knew that: It meant he had understood, but still thought it was pointless.

“You englishmen are strange. You live isolated, copying books that don’t have a purpose and live surrounded by riches that you ignore and aren’t protected by anyone. And then we arrive, take all the gold, and the books don’t help you at all.”

“Those books and these riches didn’t use to need protection” clarified Athelstan sternly. “Lindisfarne is a holy place, and our people are peaceful. No one would have dared to attack us.”

“Peaceful?” There was an amused shine on Ragnar’s eyes, pointedly fixed on Athelstan’s, like a sort of challenge. Or siren song. “Perhaps you don’t know your own people after all. We have lost men in England, they aren’t foreign to war, although they’re not good for it. They’re not peaceful, they’re stupid.”

“Or perhaps we would rather avoid war than considering it a first option” Athelstan retorted. “We do have wars, but we avoid them as much as we can. To me, a killer is just a murderer. But as far as I’ve seen, it means nothing to you. Killing enemies gives you honor. Even if those enemies have done nothing against you. Even if those enemies are my brothers.”

Athelstan had looked away from Ragnar’s eyes, and now his eyes were fixed on the mountains, raising over the water and watching over them. He swallowed tightly as he felt that blue weight, not carefree anymore, but pensive.

“And… Our enemies were always christians. No one would have dared to attack a monastery” he added awkwardly.

He heard Ragnar shifting, the wooden boards of the boat creaking underneath him. Athelstan could feel him, his face so close his breath almost touched Athelstan’s shoulder.

“Is that what you think? That I don’t know the value of life? That we” he gestured towards the general direction of the farm “don’t wish we could have a peaceful life? That our land could give us enough to not need to seek other places?”

Athelstan might have answered, but there was a lump in his throat. There was something he could argue, he was sure of it – killing the monks would never be justified, ever, not in his eyes – but there was some sort of barrier between his mind and his tongue. Ragnar was, with his voice and his presence.

“We need to go take things from others to survive. If we have to fight someone for it, then we take the chance to honor the gods. Perhaps we didn’t need to kill those brothers, as you call them, back then and they weren’t a good offering anyway, but it was a strange land of strange people. We had no reason to believe we wouldn’t be met with violence. And now, they consider us demons, they insult us and our gods, and they don’t even need to be attacked to desire to see us dead. You can’t blame the men for not liking them. Just be thankful they like you.”

“And it’s not like I haven’t seen people in need in England too, willing to do things that would surely disappoint your God. But of course, it’s easy to ignore that when you live isolated from the world and everyone’s pain, isn’t it?”

Athelstan’s head snapped back towards Ragnar then, intense eyes and everything forgotten. His lower lip hanged sightly, and his eyes were wide open. With only a few words, Ragnar had shaken everything Athelstan believed in.

“Excuse me?”

“If I got it right, monks separate themselves from the world. You have no needs that you can’t satisfy yourselves and people give you the money they need to please your God. You turn a blind eye on the people who are hungry, who have no homes, but your consciousness are clean because you have devoted your life to something else. I don’t understand how that’s the way to serve a God who speaks of mercy.”

After a couple moments of watching how Athelstan shook lightly, unable to bring an answer to his lips, Ragnar’s eyes took a softer look and he smiled.

“You’re not a selfish man, Athelstan, and I don’t understand how you found yourself in such a selfish life. The Gods don’t want contemplation, they want action, and I can’t think why yours would be different. Tell me, why would he give you life if he meant for you to throw it away? You will have time for him after your death, or so you tell me, so I see no reason why you shouldn’t live now.”

The other man remained silent, eyes cast down to his hands, turned into fists, and for the first time too deep in the stormy ocean of his own thoughts to notice Ragnar’s attention on him. It took him some time to notice the net was being pulled from under the water, and he rushed to it, thankful for any distraction.

The two men pulled the fish into the boat, Ragnar’s grin after seeing the amount wide enough to make Athelstan smile feebly, too. Ragnar started rowing back to the shore, and like every moment before, staring at him.

“Life is to be lived, Athelstan. I will teach you how to.”


End file.
